The NEW Sofirn C8F Triple XP-L W2 w/side e-switch

meter inline, or pass through meter between power supply.
May be a better way but that is what I have done. :blush:
Not all meters have mA or less capability.

Yup. I’ve been wanting the measure the parasitic drain on my illuminated tailcaps but unfortunately my DMM’s resolution for amps doesn’t go that low. For that reason I’ve been debating about picking up one of the ZT102 that I see codes popping up for around $10. It supposedly measures down into the uA range.

Excellent review thanks! I’m also reviewing this hope to have it done soon.

I used a Mastech multimeter set at 20m? or 20u? and it showed between 9.8 and 10.7, is that the milliOhm’s?

I also removed the pcb in the tail cap and pulled the spring from it, removed the small gauge wire bypass and soldered the spring onto a copper disc, put a 20ga wire bypass in. And it made no difference in the lumens readings. So the stock pcb and spring/bypass are as good as it gets. :wink:

Ok, so whatever this means that’s how much parasitic drain it has. :wink:

Oh, I also filed the anodization off the end of the head and also cleaned it off the shoulder on the battery tube, so the ground path is direct in that tight junction…. the end of the battery tube doesn’t quite seat down onto the shelf around the driver. This effort produced just about as much gain as the copper in the tail cap, in other words, nothing. Still makes the same output as before I did all that. :stuck_out_tongue:

(Essentially, in other words, they already have it working great and most of the tricks and tweaks produce nil.)

Ok, so I went back and also put a 20ga Turnigy bypass on the driver, now, with the highest performing SonyVTC5A it’s making 4378.05 lumens out the front. :smiley:

Tracy tells me that her engineers informed her that the XP-L Neutral White emitters are V6 2D or 2C. I like em, they’re just a tad bit whiter than a 3D and that works beautifully to my eye.

I think the only way to get more out of this light is to go with XP-L2’s, not intending to change it though as I like it very much as it is right now. The UI works for me, easy enough to get directly to moon or Turbo and in between are 5 useable modes… a bit of a jump between 2 and 3 but it’s fine.

Edit: I can remember being excited to get 4000 lumens from the quite large TK75, and again to get that much from the 4 headed Black Shadow Terminator… This C8 is doing what yesterday’s big boss lights did! How cool is THAT?!

WOW! :open_mouth: That is amazing! How well does it take the heat?

If you want to purchase it again, we would love to offer a code for you. Please pm :wink:

Maybe you can try the SP32A. 2 Light Groups (6 brightness levels and dimming), with memory, one click on and double clicks for turbo. Here is the code and link.

Thank you Tracy. Much appreciated. :wink:

Doug, It handles the heat surprisingly well. The MCPCB is a large copper DTP, I confirmed that it is in fact Direct Thermal Path, and the shelf is pretty thick under this piece. The head has proper fins and also has the mass of the 3 protrubences that make the C8 what it is. Sure, it’ll warm up given some run time on Turbo, but it takes a bit longer than I would have thought.

The top cell I’ve found is the Sony VTC5A, other cells won’t push it as hard and so the heat and run time will of course be affected in a positive way with a lower discharge capability and higher capacity. Like with our FET drivers, it’s pretty easy to control the parameters by proper cell choice. :wink:

Sounds great to me :slight_smile: I am going to purchase one when I am able to. Just got done buying the BLF GT, Emisar D4 and accessories along with the Nitecore Tube and 4 sets of batteries. The Mrs is not real happy with me right now :person_facepalming: :stuck_out_tongue: Great job by the way! Amazing output in such a small package. I like the fact that it will run a bit longer in turbo then just burst modes. I have a old Ebay Trustfire with a three emitter lens and a three 18650 tube that I want to mod. A 9V driver and three XLamp® XM-L2 Gen 2 Emitters should really make this flashlight shine.

You might want to consider the Luminus SST-40, it can make a lot more lumens than the XM-L2 and fits the same footprint. The only ones commonly available now though have a blue-white output, not really bad but noticeable. Lumens is fantastic though!

Thank you for the info! I’ll look and see if Digi-Key has them in stock.

I’ve had my Supfire M6 running at close to 5000 lumens for quite a while now, triple XM-L2. I swapped in 3 SST-40’s and it now makes 8866 lumens. Seriously, an emitter swap!

The only way I know how to check is the usual way, by accident, but I’m really good at checking that way. :cry:

Thanks, I don’t know if that’s good or bad either, but it looks like it’s fairly low?

Nice!